Do Agricultural Extension Services Really Matter to Indian Farmers? Evidence from Situation Assessment Survey on Farmers

To attain the goal of doubling farmers’ income, technical advice and adoption play a crucial role in the Indian agriculture sector. Because of the modernisation of Indian agriculture and the easy availability of advanced technology, farmers are taking technical advice and new advanced technological information from several sources to increase productivity and their income. An attempt has been made in this study to understand the changes in access and adoption of agriculture extension services in India. The national representative unit-level data have been taken from the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) 77th round (2019) on ‘Land and Livestock Holdings of Households and Situation Assessment of Agricultural Households’. The logistic regression is used, considering binary nature of dependent variable, to understand the changes in ‘access’ and ‘adoption’ of agriculture extension services in India. The study found that the level of education, training to farmers, awareness about minimum support price (MSP), registered members of farmer’s organisation and farm size are significant factors influencing the access to technical advice whereas the household size, farmers belonging to lower social groups and use of information and communication technology (ICT) are major factors influencing the adoption of technical advice in Indian farming community. Based on the results of the study, it is recommended that decision makers should focus more on farmers having limited assets and belonging to lower social groups to increase the adoption of new technology with affordable prices. There is a need to provide basic infrastructure facilities which will increase the adoption of modern technology among the farming community. JEL Codes: Q1, O3, R2